The DLC Criminologist - Vol. 3, No. 1, Page 1

THE DLC CRIMINOLOGIST Volume 3, Issue Number 1 Spring 2015

Welcome to the first Newsletter of 2015! We are

grateful to Tom Arnold for putting it together, and to Rolf

Loeber for organizing a series of articles on longitudinal

studies of criminal behavior. The DLC Executive Board

hopes that you will find this Newsletter of interest and that

you will find the four articles stimulating and useful for

your research.

We welcome Beth Huebner as our new ASC Executive

Board Liaison Officer, and we are very grateful to Beths predecessor Lisa Broidy for her very valuable

contributions to the DLC.

The big news is that the first issue of our new journal,

the Journal of Developmental and Life-Course

Criminology, has been published, and the second issue is

in production! We are extremely grateful to Tara McGee

and Paul Mazerolle for their enormous efforts in getting

this journal off the ground. We are also very grateful to

Springer and to Katie Chabalko for agreeing to publish our

journal and for all their help and support. Please submit

your papers! All DLC members will have free access to

the electronic version of the journal, so the DLC dues will

continue to be very modest, at $10 for full members and $5

for students. DLC members who wish to receive printed

copies of the new journal can obtain these for the bargain

price of $20 per year.

Our membership is in good shape. We had about 250

members at the end of 2014, and nearly 220 have joined so

far in 2015. Please encourage past members to rejoin and

new members to join the DLC! Please contact Arjan

Blokland with suggestions about how to increase the DLC

membership.

We are looking forward to the next ASC meeting in the

beautiful city of Washington DC. As usual, we will have

an Open Meeting, and we hope that as many DLC

members as possible will attend it. At this Meeting, I hope

that DLC members will put their names forward to serve

on our Committees in 2015-2016. This Meeting is also

your opportunity to make suggestions about activities that

the DLC should engage in to advance developmental and

life-course criminology and criminal career research. We

are very grateful to Elaine Doherty, Bianca Bersani, Stacey

Bosick, and the DLC program committee for organizing

ASC panels. We will list relevant DLC panels in the next

Newsletter, which will be sent out before the ASC.

Welcome from David Farrington

At the next ASC, we will have a Division Table for the

first time, and we need volunteers to sit at this table for some

time period and give information about the DLC. If you are

willing to do this, please email our Secretary/Treasurer Tara

McGee.

Our ASC social event at Jillians last year was very successful, and we are very grateful to Darrick Jolliffe for

organizing this. As a reward (?), we have asked Darrick to

organize another DLC social event on the Thursday night in

Washington DC. Preparations for this, at the Jack Rose

Dining Saloon, are underway. All paid-up DLC members are

invited and will receive information in due course about how

to download their admission ticket. Please put 6.30-8.00 pm

on the Thursday night (November 19) in your calendar!

As mentioned in the last Newsletter, the Awards

Committee decided to establish a third DLC Award in 2015,

for the most outstanding book or article on developmental or

life-course criminology in the previous two years. Please

note the Call for Nominations for the three DLC Awards; the

others are the Life-Time Achievement Award and the Early

Career Award. We are very grateful to Jesse Cale for

chairing the Awards Committee this year. Please also note

the Call for Nominations for the 2015 Election Slate of

Officers. We particularly need nominations for a new

Graduate Student Representative; we are very grateful to

Christoffer Carlsson for his efforts in this post, but he has

now graduated and gone on to greater things!

As I mentioned in the last Newsletter, it is apparent that

the DLCs original constitution is in need of amendment, and that we need to establish a Constitution Review

Committee. Adrian Raine has kindly agreed to chair this

committee, which will bring forward proposals for changes

in the Constitution before the next ASC meeting. These will

be emailed to the membership for voting and the results will

be announced at the Open Meeting.

We encourage all DLC members to submit news items to

Tom Arnold for publication in the next Newsletter. Please

tell us about your recent (2014-15) publications, grants,

awards (etc.), and any other information of interest to DLC

members (e.g. upcoming conferences).

In conclusion, I would like to thank all Executive Board

members for their altruistic support. As always, the

Executive Board would very much welcome suggestions

from DLC members about what activities the DLC should

engage in to advance developmental and life-course

criminology and criminal career research. Two suggestions

that were made last year were that the DLC should organize

a pre-ASC workshop and that the DLC should try to obtain

organizational/institutional members who would help to

sponsor DLC events such as a breakfast. I would be very

happy to receive any further comments or offers of

assistance on these topics. We look forward to seeing you in

Washington DC if not before!

The DLC Criminologist - Vol. 3, No. 1, Page 2

IN S ID E TH IS IS S U E

1 Welcome from David Farrington

2 Executive Board Members

3 Secretary/Treasurers Report

3 Committee Membership

4 Nominations Committee Report

4 Awards Committee Report

5 Membership Committee Report

5 Constitution Review Committee Report

6 Journal of Developmental and Life-Course Criminology

7 2014 DLC Awards

7 Upcoming events and announcements

7 DLC Social Event at the ASC in 2015

8 A Note from the Editor

8 Special Section: Methods to optimize retention of participants in longitudinal studies

9

Participant Retention in the Rochester Youth Development Study

12 Tracing Men in the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development (CSDD)

14 How to get a high response rate in longitudinal studies

17 Planning for Long-Term Follow-up: Strategies Learned from the Seattle Social Development Project

Executive Board Members Chair: David Farrington - dpf1@cam.ac.uk Vice-Chair: Rolf Loeber - loeberr@upmc.edu Newsletter and Website Editor Tom Arnold arnoldtk@mail.uc.edu Secretary and Treasurer: Tara Renae McGee - tr.mcgee@griffith.edu.au Past Chair: Adrian Raine - araine@sas.upenn.edu Executive Counselors: Arjan Blokland - ablokland@nscr.nl Elaine Doherty - dohertye@umsl.edu Jesse Cale - j.cale@unsw.edu.au ASC Executive Liaison: Beth Huebner huebnerb@umsl.edu Postgraduate Representative: Open

Joining the ASC Division of Developmental and Life-Course Criminology (DLC)

If you would like to join the American Society of Criminology (ASC) Division of Developmental and Life-Course Criminology (DLC), you first need to be a member of the ASC. When you join the ASC, be sure to check the box that says Division of Developmental and Life-Course Criminology.

To learn more about the ASC, visit http://asc41.com/index.htm

To join the ASC and DLC division visit http://asc41.com/appform1.html

Spread the Word!

Please send this newsletter to any of your

colleagues who have an interest in

developmental and life-course criminology. We

would like to increase our membership so that

we can build a larger DLC community of

scholars.

Visit our web site at http://www.dlccrim.org

The DLC Criminologist - Vol. 3, No. 1, Page 3

DLC Committees

Awards Committee Chair: Jesse Cale

Lia Ahonen Leena Augimeri Ross Homel Wesley Jennings Lila Kazemian Doris MacKenzie

Membership Committee Chair: Arjan Blokland

Danielle Boisvert Shaun Gann Kelly Knight Sonja Siennick Stacy Tzoumakis Jamie Vaske

Newsletter Committee Chair: Rolf Loeber

Lia Ahonen Tom Arnold

Julie Marie Baldwin

Molly Buchanan

Chris Gibson

Marvin Krohn

Jeffrey Mathesius

Nominations Committee Chair: David Farrington

Anna Baldry Sarah Bennett Henriette Bergstrom Evan McCuish Jamie Newsome Helene White

Program Committee Chair: Elaine Doherty

Bianca Bersani Leana Allen Bouffard Constance Hassett-Walker Darrick Jolliffe Matthew Larson Sonja Siennick

Constitution Review Committee:

Chair: Adrian Raine

David Farrington Beth Huebner Doris MacKenzie

Secretary/Treasurers Report

Tara Renae McGee Secretary / Treasurer

tr.mcgee@griffith.edu.au

All is well with Division membership and

finances. You can read about our current

membership numbers in Arjan Bloklands report in this newsletter. This has had effects on income for

the Division. By the end of April 2015 we had a

balance of US$4,000. Some of these funds will be

expended on awards, the Divisions website ($134.87), and the Division social in Washington

DC in November 2015. Further details about this

event will be provided closer to the date.

If members have suggestions for how these

funds should be used to support the Division, please

contact any member of the Executive Board with

your ideas.

At last years annual meeting in San Francisco, the Division met to discuss a number of issues. The

full minutes of the meeting are available on the

Division website. The executive board of the

Division for 2015 was officially announced and the

chairperson, David Farrington, encouraged those

attending the meeting to volunteer for roles within

the Division. A number of new awards were

discussed at the meeting and details of these will be

provided to members as they are developed.

For the San Francisco conference, Elaine

Doherty arranged for a list of papers to be circulated

to members to highlight the developmental and life-

course panels throughout the conference. If people

want to make sure that their paper is included on

this list, they should send the details to Elaine:

dohertye@umsl.edu

The other big news for the Division is that the

official journal, the Journal of Developmental and

Life-Course Criminology, has published its first

issue. More details on that can be found in another

story in this newsletter.

The DLC Criminologist - Vol. 3, No. 1, Page 4

Nominations Committee Report

David Farrington

dpf1@cam.ac.uk Chair of the DLC Nominations Committee

The Division of Developmental and Life-

course Criminology Call for Nominations for the

2015 Election Slate of Officers

The DLC nominations committee is currently

seeking nominations for the positions of

Secretary/ Treasurer and two Executive

Counselors. All Executive Counselors chair one

DLC Committee and the current post holders

chair the Membership and Awards Committees

in 2015. The appointments will be for two years,

from November 2015 to November 2017. The

current holders of these posts are eligible for re-

election.

Nominations are also sought for the Graduate

Student Representative on the DLC Board,

which is currently vacant. The holder of this post

will serve until they are no longer a graduate

student.

Nominees must be current members

(including student members) in good standing of

the DLC. Self-nominations are accepted. Please

send the names of nominees, the position for

which they are being nominated, and a brief bio

via email before June 30, 2015 to

David Farrington

Chair, Nominations Committee

dpf1@cam.ac.uk

All nominators should include a statement that

the nominee is willing to serve if elected.

Jesse Cale

j.cale@unsw.edu.au

Chair of the DLC Awards Committee

The DLC Awards Committee has now

established three awards: The Life-Time

Achievement Award, the Early Career Award, and

the Outstanding Contribution Award. Nominations

are now invited for the three 2015 Awards.

The Life-time Achievement Award recognizes an

individual who has a record of sustained and

outstanding contributions to scholarly acknowledge

on developmental and life-course criminology.

The Early Career Award recognizes an individual

(within 4 years after receiving the Ph.D. degree or a

similar graduate degree) who has made a significant

contribution to scholarly knowledge on

developmental and life-course criminology in their

early career.

The Outstanding Contribution Award recognizes

a DLC book, article, or book chapter published in the

previous two years (2013-2014). Developmental and

life-course criminology includes criminal career

research.

Nominees do not need to be DLC members.

Nominators should submit an email specifying the

contributions of the nominee to developmental and

life-course criminology plus a vita of the nominee.

Send materials before June 30, 2015 to

Jesse Cale

Chair of the DLC Awards Committee

j.cale@unsw.edu.au

Recipients will receive their awards at the ASC

meeting in November in Washington, DC.

Awards Committee Report

The DLC Criminologist - Vol. 3, No. 1, Page 5

Membership Committee Report

Arjan Blokland

ablokland@nscr.nl

After a steady increase in membership during

2013 and early 2014, membership of the division

seems to have reached a (temporary) plateau

during the latter half of 2014 and the first months

of 2015. It would appear that the problem is that

some members have not yet renewed their

membership in the division. The DLC

membership numbers in April showed 217

registered members, and this number lingers

somewhat behind the peak of 247 paying

members as of December 2014. This drop is

found, even though 115 new members joined the

division as of January 2015. If all of the prior

members had renewed their membership, the

April 2015 membership numbers should have

been over 300 members.

This year has seen the launch of the Journal

of Developmental and Life-course Criminology

which may be responsible for the influx of new

members starting January 2015 and we hope this

trend will carry on during the coming period.

The coming months, the membership

committee will be actively reminding previous

members to renew their membership in time, and

also be preparing the divisions promotional activities during the upcoming ASC meeting in

Washington. Our goal remains to promote DLC-

research across the globe, and we have set our

minds on topping the 2014 membership numbers

by the end of the year!

Adrian Raine

araine@sas.upenn.edu

The original constitution of the DLC was

drafted by David Farrington and Tara McGee in

2012 and based on the constitution of two other

ASC Divisions. However, it needs some minor

changes. In particular:

1. The constitution specifies that the

Nominations Committee should consist of 3

persons but our policy is that important

committees should consist of 7 persons.

2. The constitution does not specify that the

Chair can co-opt additional Executive Board

members such as the Newsletter Editor, the

Graduate Student Representative, and the ASC

Executive Board Liaison officer.

3. The constitution specifies that the ASC

Executive Office will conduct our elections but

they do not want to do this and in practice we

have done it ourselves.

Therefore, the DLC Executive Board has

created a Constitution Review Committee to

propose amendments to the constitution. If any

member wishes to suggest an amendment to the

DLC constitution (which can be viewed on the

DLC website), please send an email before June

30, 2015 to

Adrian Raine Chair of the Constitution Review Committee araine@sas.upenn.edu

All proposed amendments need to be

approved by a two-thirds vote of DLC members

who respond to an email ballot, and then by the

ASC Executive Board.

Constitution Review Committee Report

The DLC Criminologist - Vol. 3, No. 1, Page 6

Journal of Developmental and Life-Course Criminology

The first issue of the Divisions Journal of Developmental and Life-Course Criminology

was published in March 2105 and the articles

from the first issue (listed below) are available

online at http://link.springer.com/journal/40865/1/1/page/1

Sex Differences in the Stability of Self-Regulation Across Childhood Michelle

Anne Coyne, Jamie C. Vaske, Danielle L.

Boisvert, John Paul Wright

Understanding Race/Ethnicity Differences in Offending Across the Life Course: Gaps

and Opportunities Alex R. Piquero

When Is a Youths Debt to Society Paid? Examining the Long-Term Consequences

of Juvenile Incarceration for Adult

Functioning Amanda B. Gilman, Karl G.

Hill, J. David Hawkins

Intergenerational Similarities in Risk Factors for Offending David P. Farrington,

Maria M. Ttofi, Rebecca V. Crago, Jeremy

W. Coid

Elaborating on the Effects of Early Offending: a Study of Factors that Mediate

the Impact of Onset Age on Long-Term

Trajectories of Criminal Behavior Shaun

M. Gann, Christopher J. Sullivan, Omeed

S. Ilchi

There are also new articles being added

regularly to online first, so be sure to check out

the latest papers at

http://link.springer.com/journal/40865

The Journal seeks to advance knowledge and

understanding of developmental dimensions of

offending across the life-course. Research that

examines current theories, debates, and

knowledge gaps within Developmental and Life-

Course Criminology is encouraged. The journal

welcomes theoretical papers, empirical papers,

and papers that explore the translation of

developmental and life-course research into

policy and/or practice. Papers that present

original research or explore new directions for

examination are also encouraged. The journal

also welcomes all rigorous methodological

approaches and orientations. The Journal of

Developmental and Life-course Criminology

encourages submissions from a broad array of

cognate disciplines including but not limited to

psychology, statistics, sociology, psychiatry,

neuroscience, geography, political science,

history, social work, epidemiology, public

health, and economics.

The Journals co-editors-in-chief are Tara Renae McGee and Paul Mazerolle of Griffith

University, Australia. The Associate Editors are

Alex Piquero, USA; Ray Corrado, Canada;

Georgia Zara, Europe; and Darrick Jolliffe, UK.

The Editorial Manager of the Journal is Fiona

Saunders and the journal is hosted by Griffith

University.

Further information about the journal can be

found on the journals website http://www.springer.com/40865 and any queries

can be directed to Tara, Paul, or Fiona at

jdlcc@griffith.edu.au.

We welcome your submissions!

Tara Renae McGee and Paul Mazerolle

Co-editors-in-chief

Tara Renae McGee Co-editor-in-chief tr.mcgee@griffith.edu.au

Paul Mazerolle Co-editor-in-chief p.mazerolle@griffith.edu.au

The DLC Criminologist - Vol. 3, No. 1, Page 7

2014 DLC Awards

The DLC Life-time Achievement award was

presented to J. David Hawkins of the University

of Washington and Marc LeBlanc of the

University of Montreal. The Early Career Award

was presented to Sytske Besemer of the

University of California at Berkeley.

DLC Social Event at the ASC in 2015

Continuing on from the success of the DLC

social event at the ASC in San Francisco in

2014, we have planned another exciting night

out for the DLC in Washington. All paid-up

DLC members are invited to attend on

Thursday November 19

6:30pm until 8pm

Balcony Room

Jack Rose Dining Saloon

2007 18th St NW

Washington, DC 20009

The food will be free and drinks can be

purchased. The venue is just a short walk from

the conference hotel, so do come and enjoy some

appetizers and great company. As a final selling

point the Jack Rose Saloon features 10 different

types of Canadian Whiskey!! More information

will be sent to DLC members nearer the time.

J. David Hawkins received the Lifetime Achievement Award

Sytske Besemer received the Early Career Award

Upcoming events and announcements

The newsletter committee encourage

members to inform about upcoming meetings,

conferences, courses and other interesting events

relating to the division.

In September 2015, rebro University,

Sweden launches their new BA-program in

Criminology. The program is closely related to

the research group CAPS (Center for

Criminological and PsychoSocial Research),

which has a broad approach to DLC-criminology

including (but not exclusively) early

psychopathy, institutional care and corrections,

the juvenile justice system, policing and public

safety.

We welcome researchers and students to

come and visit. For more information visit

http://www.oru.se/English/Research/Research-

Environments/Research-environment/HS/Center-

for-Criminological-Research/

or email Lia Ahonen ahonenl@upmc.edu.

Mac LeBlanc

received the

Lifetime

Achievement

Award

The DLC Criminologist - Vol. 3, No. 1, Page 8

Rolf Loeber

Department of Psychiatry at the University of

Pittsburgh School of Medicine

loeberr@upmc.edu

Introduction

It is my pleasure that four longitudinal

researchers and their associates were willing to

contribute in the series on Methods to optimize

retention of participants in longitudinal studies,

summarizing their experiences in the course of

executing six longitudinal studies. As Chu and

Thornberry (see paper below) expressed, the

longer the longitudinal study the higher the

probability of failure because of loss of

participants (also called poor retention), which

causes many problems, foremost the inability to

generalize findings to the earlier full sample of

participants usually because of selective attrition.

This is the main reason why the following papers

are important for the field, especially for those of you

planning to start longitudinal studies, even short ones,

because all of such studies engender the danger of

high participant loss. As stated by Stouthamer-

Loeber and Loeber in their paper on three

longitudinal studies (see below), the planning to

counter participant loss and retain participants

engaged in repeated assessments needs to take place

prior to the first assessment. One of the important

points stressed by Hill and co-authors (see below) is

that participant retention and the retention of

experienced staff in longitudinal studies are equally

important.

The complications of follow-ups multiply for

intergenerational studies, but these can be managed

(Chu and Thornberry, see below). The Cambridge

Study in Delinquent Development (see Farrington [[],

below), because of its longest follow-up and highest

cooperation rate, the granddaddy of all longitudinal crime studies also contains outstanding advice on

how to retain participants over more than four

decades.

In summary, the knowledge gained by the

authors below forms a template for scholars of small

and large longitudinal studies in the future. It all

depends on what we can learn from the experiences

of the older guards.

Special Section: Methods to optimize retention of participants in longitudinal studies

there may be some changes to the constitution of the

division.

Professor Loeber, the DLC Board, and the various

committee members, as well as the contributing

authors have made my job easy by providing much of

the content for this newsletter. If you have any news

that could make it into the next newsletter, please

forward it to me and I will see if I can get it

published for you.

Please remember that the web site is available at

http://www.dlccrim.org Ideas for improving the

DLC web site are welcome.

I wish you the best.

Tom Arnold

A Note from the Editor

Tom Arnold

arnoldtk@mail.uc.edu

I hope that you are finding this newsletter to be of

interest. The theme for this edition is retention in

longitudinal studies. Some of the top researchers in

the world have given us some insights into the steps

needed to retain survey participants. The division

has taken on several new initiatives and there appears

to be progress in several areas. A new division

journal is being published, there is a new award, and

The DLC Criminologist - Vol. 3, No. 1, Page 9

interviews. In 1999 we began the Rochester

Intergenerational Study (RIGS) which focuses

on the oldest biological children of the original

RYDS subjects. We are currently in the 17th

year of data collection. Of those who enrolled in

the RIGS about 87% are still enrolled today. The

RYDS employs a combination of strategies to

attain high retention rates.

Locating Procedures

The first step in maintaining high retention is

the ability to locate the participants. Fortunately,

given the longevity of the study and the rapport

we have built up with our respondents, the

majority of the current RIGS participants are

easily located. Either their contact information

remains the same each year or they contact our

office with their new information. At the other

extreme, some participants move quite

frequently during the course of a year and many

use disposable cell phones thereby constantly

acquiring a new number. These participants

require considerably more effort to locate.

To aid in this effort we maintain extensive

paper files as well as an electronic database

containing both current and historical

information on all RYDS participants. The files

contain phone and address histories for the

participants as well as for designated secondary

sources spanning back to the first year of the

study. Secondary sources are relatives or friends

nominated at the end of each interview by the

participants who would know their whereabouts

if they were to move from their current location.

We also record the dates and times of locating

attempts and keep detailed case notes that aid in

contact strategies (e.g., "works night shift, call

early morning") so that interviewers can vary

future efforts and increase the chances of a

successful contact. The basic rule in this area is

to maintain detailed records and never to throw

any of it away. It is surprising how often old

records turn out to be useful.

Two basic locating strategies have been

particularly effective over the years. First, by this

point we have accumulated literally dozens of

secondary source forms for some participants.

By contacting these individuals in reverse

By definition, longitudinal studies of crime

and delinquency follow individuals over time. For

many theoretical and empirical reasons, the longer

the follow-up period especially if it cuts across multiple developmental stages the better. Yet the longer the follow-up period, the higher attrition is

likely to be and the less representative the sample

is likely to become. Thus, a fundamental challenge

for all longitudinal studies is to maintain high

participant retention. We discuss several

techniques for doing so in the present article.

Rochester Youth Development Study

In addressing this issue we use our experiences

in and lessons learned from the Rochester Youth

Development Study (RYDS), a longitudinal study

that has followed a panel of participants initially

selected when they were adolescents. The initial

sample consisted of 1,000 adolescents (average

age 14) selected to over-represent high-risk youth.

Subjects were interviewed 14 times from 1988

through 2006. At the end of this 18 year period,

80% (n=803) of the original 1,000 were re-

interviewed at the age 29 and/or age 31

Participant Retention in the Rochester Youth Development Study

Rebekah Chu

Hindelang Criminal Justice

Research Center

University at Albany

rchu@albany.edu

Terence P. Thornberry

Department of Criminology

and Criminal Justice

University of Maryland

thornbet@umd.edu

The DLC Criminologist - Vol. 3, No. 1, Page 10

websites. We use multiple search databases

because different services return different

information. The growing trend towards

eliminating home phone lines and relying solely

on cell phones has made online phone number

searches increasingly difficult, but not

impossible. We piece together the varied search

results (e.g., date of birth, listed relatives, last

recorded address) and compare it to our internal

records allowing us to verify that the results are

for our participants and not someone with a

similar name. We also regularly check inmate

rosters for the New York State Department of

Corrections and Community Supervision and the

Monroe County jail and prison which are

available online and updated frequently.

Even with all of these strategies, there are

some instances where we have exhausted all

possible leads and are still unable locate a

participant. These cases are put aside and after a

couple of months we initiate a new search.

During this time, a secondary source could have

made contact with a participant and now has a

new phone number for them. Online search

databases are regularly updated and perhaps our

participant now has a new address or appears in

an inmate roster. Sometimes, the participant will

contact our office after receiving a message that

we were looking for them.

Communication

We strive to maintain communication with

both our active and inactive study participants.

A newsletter, the RYDSLetter, is mailed 3 times

a year. This keeps participants informed of

current research findings and accomplishments

of the project. The RYDS is only as successful as

the cooperation of the participants and it is

important to let them know that they have

contributed to significant scientific research.

The RYDS also has a Facebook page to

allow participants to get project updates in

electronic form. Since many people are regularly

connected to Facebook through a mobile

application we also hope to reach participants for

whom we do not have valid physical addresses

and therefore will not receive our mailings.

chronological order we have been able to find

many participants who had gone missing. Also, at the bottom of each secondary source page the

RYDS subject signs a statement indicating that he

or she approves of the secondary source providing

current contact information to the project. That

signature provides assurance to secondary sources

who are sometimes reluctant to provide the

information.

Second, the most effective locating strategy

has always been plain old detective work in-field searches for our participants. Interviewers visit

last known addresses for our participants and their

secondary sources. Sometimes, neighbors know

the general whereabouts of our participants and

will offer new leads. Even if the participant is not

located, we are at least able to verify whether or

not an address is still valid. For participants who

provide work numbers as contact information,

interviewers have also visited places of

employment in attempts to make contact.

Importantly, there is no set limit on the

number of attempts made to locate both active and

inactive study participants. We continue to search

for them until they directly tell us they no longer

want to be involved in the study. We also continue

to interview participants who have moved out of

the Rochester area. Phone interviews are

completed for most of these participants, but as

funding permits our interviewers travel out of state

to conduct the interviews in person. Face-to-face

is the preferred method of administering our

interviews as they allow for a more personable

experience and traveling to our participants

conveys the message that their continued

involvement in the study is important to us even

though they have moved away from Rochester. In

an earlier simulation study, Thornberry,

Bjerregaard, and Miles (1993) demonstrated the

importance of extensive callback procedures and

of following long-distance cases; when hard-to-

locate or long-distance cases were excluded from

the analysis basic results changed and did not

represent those observed for the full sample.

We also turn to online database search services

that not only search phone and address listings,

but also social and employment networking

The DLC Criminologist - Vol. 3, No. 1, Page 11

Advance letters are mailed to RIGS

participants before we start contacting them for

appointments. Reminders are also sent just before

a scheduled appointment using various means of

contact depending upon the participant's

preference letter, phone call, email, or text message.

Those who are not currently being interviewed

(e.g., original subjects who are not enrolled in

RIGS) are still located on an annual basis. We

strive to maintain updated contact information for

all subjects, active or inactive. We also mail the

RYDSLetter to any subjects for whom we have

valid addresses. This continued communication

lets them know that the project is operational and

that we are still interested in keeping in touch with

them after all these years.

Resources and Staff

Essential ingredients for a successful study of

this nature are adequate resources and a competent

staff. Adequate funding is essential not only for

the normal, operational costs of running a research

project, but for the additional expenses associated

with maintaining participant cooperation.

Incentive payments at the end of each interview

are central to continued participation especially in

high risk, low income samples. Recently, we

implemented a bonus incentive drawing at the end

of the data collection year; participants who

complete an interview are eligible to win a

relatively large sum of money in addition to their

regular incentive payment. As noted earlier, we

also continue to interview participants who have

moved out of the Rochester area, preferably with

face-to-face interviews. Our interviewers travel

out of state to conduct these interviews and the

travel budget is not inconsequential.

Those participants who are difficult to locate

require considerable effort to track down. Without

adequate resources, we would not be able to

dedicate the time and effort necessary to locate

them. It is important that the locating effort be

ongoing throughout the data collection year. If too

much time passes between locating attempts we

risk missing out on potential leads towards finding

them.

A dedicated and well-trained staff is also a

major contributing factor to the success of any

research project. The high retention rate of the

RYDS is largely due to the retention of our staff.

The office staff and field interviewers have been

with the project for 13 years on average, and

during this time they have established excellent

rapport with our participants. Longevity is

particularly crucial for the appointment

coordinator who does most of the scheduling. Her

rapport and informal knowledge of the participants

and their families is vital for maintaining

cooperation. The interviewers are also long-time

residents of Rochester who are familiar with the

area and are comfortable traveling around the city

and surrounding suburbs. Familiarity with the area

also allows our appointment coordinator to cluster

appointments and locating efforts by location,

minimizing interviewer travel times. Interviewing

is hard work and interviewers need to be persistent

and not afraid to knock on doors, visit places of

employment, and make cold calls in attempts to

locate participants. They also have to have flexible

work hours to accommodate participants'

schedules, schedules that are likely to differ day-

to-day and week-to-week. Appointments are

booked at a time and place that is most convenient

for the participant, and we strive to make sure

every day of the week is covered.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly our

interviewers are trained to always be respectful

and courteous to the participants. After all, we are

intruding in their daily lives year after year and

asking them sensitive and difficult questions. We

owe them a great debt of gratitude. The success of

any longitudinal study is entirely dependent upon

their willingness to help the scientific enterprise

and they deserve no less than to be treated with the

respect that is due to full and equal members of

the research effort.

References

Thornberry, T. P., Bjerregaard, B., & Miles, W.

(1993). The Consequences of Respondent

Attrition in Panel Studies: A Simulation Based

on the Rochester Youth Development Study.

Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 9(2),

127-158.

The DLC Criminologist - Vol. 3, No. 1, Page 12

persons interviewed, and the reasons for missing cases,

and should attempt to estimate the effects of attrition.

How did we trace the males in the CSDD? For

every person, a detailed pre-interview sheet was

completed that recorded all attempts to locate and

interview him. These sheets were subsequently coded

and computerized, and Farrington et al. (1990) reported

the results of analyzing the age 32 pre-interview sheets,

completed in 1984-86. Every man was traced. The

tracing methods (25 types) were classified into the

categories of telephone calls, letters, visits, and other

(e.g. searches of electoral registers, telephone

directories, etc.). Only one attempt of a given type was

counted on any given day; for example, several visits

to a mans house on one day were counted as only one attempt of this type on this day.

The 403 males required a total of 2,915

attempts to trace them (an average of 7.2 attempts

each), of which the most common types were searches

of the local electoral register (356), visits to the mans presumed address (352), searches for the man in

telephone directories (323), searches of other electoral

registers (289), searches for family members in

telephone directories (179), telephoning the mans presumed address (164), and visits to the familys presumed address (163).

In general, the quicker methods, such as

searches of electoral registers and telephone

directories, tended to be used first, while the more

time-consuming methods, such as personal visits, were

used later. Letters were rarely written to the men or

their families, because they rarely elicited replies.

Generally, the man or his family were only telephoned

when it was expected (from past experience) that they

would be cooperative. Neighbors and current

occupants of past addresses often provided useful

information.

Each tracing attempt was classified as a

success attempt if, in retrospect, it had contributed to

tracing the man (e.g. if it had yielded accurate and

useful information or if it had helped to narrow down

the possibilities for the mans address). Other attempts were counted as failure attempts. Typically, a mans pre-interview sheet would begin with a chain of failure

attempts and end with a chain of success attempts. The

most successful methods were telephoning the mans address (78% successful), letters to the familys address (77%), visits to the mans workplace (69%), searches of the National Health Service register to

obtain the name of the family doctor who was then

contacted (65%), telephoning the familys address (63%), and criminal record searches (59%). There were

Tracing Men in the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development (CSDD) David P. Farrington

The CSDD is a prospective longitudinal survey of

411 London males. It began in 1961 when the males

were age 8. We have been very successful in tracing and

securing cooperation from the males; 378 out of 403 still

alive were interviewed at age 32 (94%), and 365 out of

394 still alive were interviewed at age 48 (93%), 40

years after the beginning of the project. More recently,

we have interviewed 551 out of 653 children of the

males at the average age of 25 (84%), in order to

compare results in the two generations (Farrington et al.,

2015).

It is important to maximize response rates in

criminological surveys, because those who are not

interviewed tend to be worse in many respects, and especially in offending and antisocial behavior, than

those who are interviewed. In the CSDD, 389 out of 410

males still alive were interviewed at age 18 (95%). Once

personal contact had been established, only a minority of

the males (64) were not immediately cooperative.

However, 36% of these uncooperative males had been

convicted, compared with 22% of the remainder, a

significant difference (West & Farrington, 1977, p. 165).

Ten years previously, parental uncooperativeness had

significantly predicted later convictions of the males

(West & Farrington, 1973, p. 77). And the males who

were the most uncooperative at age 32 were significantly

more likely than the remainder to have been convicted

after age 21 (Farrington et al., 1990, p. 143). Therefore,

attrition can lead to invalid conclusions about offending

(and related types of antisocial behavior).

Attrition is especially a problem in longitudinal

surveys, because of the need to contact people

repeatedly. If a person is missing in one wave, he/she

may continue to be missing in later waves. Missing

persons cannot be replaced. Various imputation methods

have been proposed to deal with the problem of missing

data (see e.g. Goldstein, 2009), but they usually impose

regularity on the data by assuming that missing cases are

similar to known cases. One advantage of a longitudinal

survey is that prior information is usually known about

missing cases, but it is surely preferable to have high

response rates. It is important that every report of a

survey should specify the target sample, the number of

The DLC Criminologist - Vol. 3, No. 1, Page 13

obvious selection effects, as telephone calls and letters

tended to be used only when it was anticipated that they

might be successful.

Seven men were found in the first tracing attempt,

107 by the third attempt, 204 by the fifth attempt, 312 by

the ninth attempt, and 387 by the twentieth attempt. The

median time taken to trace a man was 8 days, and the

interquartile range was from 2 to 32 days; 50 men took

longer than 80 days to trace.

The 101 most elusive men were defined as those

who had five or more failure attempts before their first

success attempt. The methods that proved to be the most

successful with these men were remarkably diverse. The

most common were leads from other men (12), visits to

the mans address (11), National Health Service records (10), visits to the familys address (9), searches of the local electoral register (9), criminal record searches (9),

telephoning the mans workplace (8), searching other electoral registers (8), and searches for the family in the

telephone directory (7). Methods that were numerically

unimportant overall such as National Health Service records, criminal records, telephoning the mans workplace, and leads from other men were relatively important for these elusive men in breaking the chain of

failure attempts at age 32.

The age 48 pre-interview sheets (completed in

2000-04) have been fully coded and computerized but not

yet fully analyzed. In total, more tracing attempts were

needed (3,563, or an average of 8.8 per man). By this time

period, computerized searching methods were more

available, and telephone ownership was much greater. The

most common methods were searches for the man on the

computerized electoral register (605), telephoning the man

(466), visiting the man (409), and searching for the man in

telephone directories (282). In general, the computerized

electoral register was searched first for the man and his

family members, but this became less useful over time as

it was made easier for citizens to opt out of having their

electoral details available in a computerized register.

Then, computerized telephone directories were searched,

but again these became less useful over time as more

people used mobile phones. Next, the man or his family

members were telephoned if it was anticipated that they

would be cooperative.

At age 48, five men could not be traced (see

Farrington et al., 2006). Of the remainder, 11% were still

living in the original small Study area in South London,

24% were living in other London postal districts, 35%

were living in the Home Counties south of London

(Surrey, Sussex, or Kent), 25% were living in the rest of

the UK, and 5% were living abroad. Two men were traced

on the first attempt, 143 by the third attempt, 221 by the

fifth attempt, 303 by the tenth attempt, 363 by the

twentieth attempt, and 381 by the thirtieth attempt.

Future analyses are planned to investigate what tracing

methods were successful with the most elusive men at

age 48. We also plan to code, computerize, and analyze

the pre-interview sheets of their children.

How to trace and secure interviews with target

persons is a vitally important topic for all

criminological researchers who are carrying out

surveys, especially longitudinal surveys. However, in

general, major criminological journals are not

interested in publishing articles on this topic, which is

a pity in my view. Of course, tracing methods change

over time, and the most useful methods in one time

period will not necessarily be the most useful in a later

time period. For example, we used Friends Reunited,

Facebook, and other internet sources in trying to trace

the children, but we did not find that these methods

were very useful. I would encourage all longitudinal

researchers in criminology to try to analyze and write

up their methods of tracing and securing cooperation,

in the interests of maximizing the validity of

conclusions about offending.

References

Farrington, D. P., Coid, J. W., Harnett, L., Jolliffe, D.,

Soteriou, N., Turner, R., and West, D. J. (2006).

Criminal Careers up to age 50 and Life Success up

to age 48: New Findings from the Cambridge

Study in Delinquent Development. London: Home

Office (Research Study No. 299).

Farrington, D. P., Gallagher, B., Morley, L., St Ledger,

R., and West, D.J. (1990). Minimizing attrition in

longitudinal research: Methods of tracing and

securing cooperation in a 24 year follow up study.

In Magnusson, D. and Bergman, L. (Eds.) Data

Quality in Longitudinal Research. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press (pp. 122 147).

Farrington, D. P., Ttofi, M. M., Crago, R. V., and Coid,

J. W. (2015). Intergenerational similarities in risk

factors for offending. Journal of Developmental

and Life-Course Criminology, 1, 48-62.

Goldstein, H. (2009). Handling attrition and non-

response in longitudinal data. Longitudinal and

Life Course Studies, 1, 63-72.

West, D. J. and Farrington, D. P. (1973). Who

Becomes Delinquent? London: Heinemann.

West, D. J. and Farrington, D. P. (1977) The

Delinquent Way of Life. London: Heinemann.

The DLC Criminologist - Vol. 3, No. 1, Page 14

long periods of time? To address this, we will

focus on the methods used in the PYS, and also

the methods applied to the two other studies. We

have learned a great deal about participant

retention from all three of our studies. An earlier

review of data collecting and management can be

found in Stouthamer-Loeber and Van Kammen

(1995). In the spirit of sharing our experiences

with the readers of this newsletter, we will

address these three questions below:

1. What are the best techniques for continued

success in locating participants in the future

and securing their cooperation?

The foundation for participant retention and

cooperation should be laid at the beginning of

the study, even prior to the first contact with the

participants. After that, each contact can lead to

improved data collection to enable future

contacts, and consolidating and improving the

quality of contacts with the participants.

The key first step is the training of the

interviewers to make the participants interview experience as pleasant as possible so that

participants are not turned off and refuse future

interviews. To counter this, we taught our

interviewers that they were our ambassadors for the study. It is very important to have

interviewers completely trained and tested before

they are allowed to do actual interviews in the

field. Next, we arranged an essential and routine

component of the assessment process which was

to conduct post-interview check-ups. Thus, after

participants had been interviewed, we checked

back with the participants for accuracy of the

collected data and to ensure that the interviewers

behaved professionally. Interviewers were aware

of this check-up process, making it a preventive

measure to ensure that there were no shortcuts or

cheating. It also gave the supervisor of the

interviewers a chance to praise and/or correct

interviewer behavior. Another component of the

follow-through procedures consisted of training

interviewers to report questions or concerns

participants expressed, and not to ad-lib these

questions, but discuss them with the supervisors

first. Supervisors were then instructed to contact

Three longitudinal studies have occupied

much of our academic lives. Together with

David Farrington, we started the first assessment

of the Pittsburgh Youth Study (PYS; N= 1,517;

mostly yearly assessments, still ongoing) in

1987. In that same year, we started with

Benjamin B. Lahey the Developmental Trends

Study (N=177; yearly assessment, last

assessment 2005-6). Thirteen years later we

started the Pittsburgh Girls Study (PGS;

N=2,451; yearly assessments, still ongoing) with

Kate Keenan. An account of the early history of

the three studies can be found in Loeber et al.

(2002). In our eyes, these studies are exceptional

because of the high cooperation rate obtained

over long periods of time. In the PYS, 82.8% of

the Youngest cohort participated after 20

assessments and 85% after 17 assessments of the

Oldest cohort (Stouthamer-Loeber & Loeber,

2014). The average participation rate in the DTS

was 91.7% (Loeber et al., 2002), while the PGS

has continued to maintain a high average

retention rate of over 90%, and it has never

fallen below 88% (Ahonen, Loeber, Hipwell &

Stepp, 2015). The question is: how were we able

to accomplish such a high cooperation rate over

How to get a high response rate in longitudinal studies

Rolf Loeber

Department of Psychiatry

at the University of

Pittsburgh School of

Medicine

loeberr@upmc.edu

Magda Stouthamer-

Loeber

stoumx@upmc.edu

The DLC Criminologist - Vol. 3, No. 1, Page 15

participants soon afterwards to discuss their

concerns. The whole idea behind this was to create

a relationship with the participants, and to let them

know that we took them seriously. We did not use

students as interviewers because they generally

could not commit themselves to the amount of

time that we needed because of their studies and

their breaks. We also wanted to build up a stable

group of interviewers who would be invested in

the project and would be able to contribute their

field experience and solutions to problems to their

fellow colleagues.

Another complementary strategy concentrated

on preventing loss of contact with the participants.

Some families often moved residence and, this

usually required a lot of searching by our research

staff to re-establish contact. The more information

about the families that was available to the team,

the more likely it was that the participant could be

found back. To economize searches, we received

permission, as part of the consent forms, from the

participants for us to contact others familiar with

the familys new location. Typically, those informants were not living in the same household,

and included other family members, friends,

schools, work places, or other institutions.

A third strategy was to collect other contact

information, such as phone numbers, and more

recently, e-mail addresses and social media

information. This information would be updated

every time a participant was interviewed or

contacted. We also asked the participants if they

had plans to move and to let the project know

when they have moved. Fourthly, we promoted

participant retention by having a payment

schedule that increased the amount of payment

over time, so that the next interview would look

attractive to the participants from a monetary point

of view.

Lastly, one of the advantages of the electronic

age that we live in is the availability of many types

of electronic websites that are in the public

domain. Some of the strategies that are used

currently are West Law which a subscription

based service where you can get updated

information on participants like address, phone

number using their subject numbers. We also used

www.whitepages.com, where a report can be

generated which contains personal, property,

criminal history, family members and other

information for a small fee. Many States and

counties have websites that contain data about

their prison population and criminal records. Other

public records that may be available are death

records, archived newspaper reports on accidents,

and sources about criminal activities. It has proved

a good strategy to search the web every now and

then for new sources. Currently, we have many

participants that use Facebook or similar social

media such as Twitter, or Instagram. Even though

some of their pages may be private, and not

display a city or telephone number, in our

experience, participants, when contacted this way,

very often reply to our inquiries. Even though the

electronic information is public information it is

wise to let participants know as part of the consent

form and in your Institutional Review Board

(IRB) protocol that the project may resort to web

searches and social media searches in order to

locate them if all other contact is lost.

It is also important to realize that a participant

who cannot be found in one phase is not

irretrievably lost. Continued searching may yield

results for the next interview phase. In addition,

participants who refuse in one phase may be

willing to do the interview in the next phase. It is

important, however, to ask permission to contact

the participant at a later date, if they have refused

to participate in the current year interview.

Information about people to contact as well as

information about the contacting process (number

of phone calls, reasons for reluctance, no-shows)

can be stored in a database which makes planning

and searching in the next phase easier.

2) How did we optimize securing cooperation

from the participants?

Again, the groundwork was laid at the

beginning of the study by training the interviewers

thoroughly and making sure that the interviewers

were as pleasant and non-confrontational as

possible. Also participants need to know

beforehand what to expect in terms of the

The DLC Criminologist - Vol. 3, No. 1, Page 16

scheduled time of an interview, and how long it

will take. In between interviews, we sent the

participants birthday cards and holiday cards. This

was also a good way to find out which addresses

were no longer valid, and to get updated address

information from the returned mail. In addition,

we provided unexpected gifts for the participants.

We found that sometimes local stores or sports

teams were willing to donate gifts or tickets for

sporting events that we then added to the

remuneration. These extra, non-expected gifts

were very much appreciated by the participants.

A crucial element in obtaining high

cooperation rates in the studies was to not restrict

the number of attempts to contact participants, or

the time it took to extend searches for them

(Cotter, Burke, Stouthamer-Loeber, & Loeber,

2005).

3) What were your best techniques in terms of

keeping the participants interested in the

study?

Aside from making the interview a pleasant

experience, it was essential not to make the

interview too long and tiring for the participants.

Second, it proved important for the interviewers to

be flexible as to what time during the day and

what day in the week the interview could be

scheduled, even offering several sessions. If

necessary, the interview could be done by

telephone. Further, we sent participants

newsletters about activities of interest, such as city

summer programs, also including upcoming

concerts and events. After the interview, we gave

each participant a resource list about local help

sources that are available... Moreover, we sent out

newsletters to the participants, but it proved

difficult for us to come up with content about the

study that did not potentially influence

participants response to the next interview.

It is hard for us now to mention which of the

above procedures was more important than others.

It is safest to say that different approaches

optimized participant retention in our three

longitudinal studies.

Acknowledgments

We are indebted to Jennifer Wilson for her

comments on an earlier draft of this paper. In

executing the three studies we owe a large

amount of gratitude to our co-investigators

including (in alphabetical order): Jeffrey Burke,

David Farrington, Alison E. Hipwell, Benjamin

B. Lahey, Dustin Pardini, Stephanie Stepp, and

Helene R. White, of which Jeffrey, Alison,

Dustin and Stephanie were hands on involved in

supervising data collection. Most importantly,

we are greatly indebted to the many supervisors

and interviewers who were engaged in the search

for participants and conducted regular

interviews.

References

Ahonen, L., Loeber, R., Hipwell, A., & Stepp, A.

(2015). What is the dark figure of girls delinquency by age and race? Discrepancies

between police charges and girls self-reported delinquency. Manuscript in

preparation.

Cotter, R.B., Burke, J.D., Stouthamer-

Loeber, M, & Loeber, R. Contacting

participants for follow-up: How much effort

is required to retain participants in

longitudinal studies? Evaluation and Program

Planning, 28: 15-21, 2005.

Loeber, R., Stouthamer-Loeber, M., Farrington,

D. P., Lahey, B. B., Keenan, K., & White, H.

R. Editorial introduction: Three longitudinal

studies of childrens development in Pittsburgh: the Developmental Trends Study,

the Pittsburgh Youth Study, and the

Pittsburgh Girls study. Criminal Behaviour

and Mental Health, 12: 1-23, 2002.

Stouthamer-Loeber, M., & Loeber, R. What we

have learned from collecting data for the

Pittsburgh Youth Study. Newsletter of the

Division of Developmental and Life-Course

Criminology (Fall, 2014).

Stouthamer-Loeber, M., & van Kammen W.B. Data

collection and management. A practical guide.

Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1995.

The DLC Criminologist - Vol. 3, No. 1, Page 17

The Seattle Social Development Project

(SSDP) is a longitudinal panel study that began

with a drug and delinquency focused preventive

intervention in grades 1-6, and was followed-up

fifteen times through age 39 (Hawkins et al., 1992;

Hawkins et al., 2007; Hill et al., 2014). In the

elementary grades, SSDP participants were

involved in a nonrandomized test of the social

developmental preventive intervention that

included the Teacher Training in Classroom

Instruction and Management; Child Social,

Emotional, and Academic Skill Development, and

Parent Training (Hawkins et al., 2008). In 1985,

808 students (from 18 Seattle elementary schools

that predominantly served high-crime

neighborhoods) and their parents consented to

participate in the longitudinal study. The panel is

ethnically diverse, and oversampled low-income

families. Data collection is currently ongoing at

age 39 (wave 15). Retention was 92% at age 33.

Attrition at each wave was not related to gender,

ethnicity or socioeconomic status.

How to get a high response rate in longitudinal

studies?

(1) Maintain a consistent field management

staff over multiple waves of data collection. The

retention of project historical knowledge is hard to

accomplish if your design has intermittent

assessments staffed by graduate and

undergraduate students of the moment. It is

typically between field periods, during the

downtime, that valuable staff and project

knowledge and skills are lost. Identify within (e.g.,

locating, see below) and across project activities

for field management, thus preventing staff

attrition between major field periods. (2) Plan for

and invest in locating (see below). (3) Follow your

participants beyond their initial catchment area,

even if they move abroad or become incarcerated.

(4) Dont stop the field period early. Understand that as the field period progresses, cases per week

completed will decline and the costs per case will

increase. Budget accordingly. Stopping the field

period early (e.g., after 70-80% complete) often

misses many of the most interesting participants

who are in that last 20-30%. (5) Be persistent but

not harassing with resistant participants.

How did you optimize finding where the

participants were living?

Locating is critical to high follow-up. (1)

Collect information on 3 stable locators at each

assessment (full name with middle name or

middle initial, and contact information). Locators

are people who will always know where you are. (2) Enable locators to provide information.

Planning for Long-Term Follow-up: Strategies Learned from the Seattle Social Development Project

Karl G. Hill

School of Social Work

University of Washington

khill@uw.edu

Danielle Woodward

Social Development

Research Group

University of Washington

dgangnes@uw.edu

Tiffany Woelfel

Department of Health

Services

University of Washington

tpw@uw.edu

David Hawkins

Social Work Endowed

Professor of Prevention

University of Washington

jdh@uw.edu

Sara Green

School of Social Work

University of Washington

srgreen@uw.edu

The DLC Criminologist - Vol. 3, No. 1, Page 18

Obtain explicit, written consent from the

respondent to contact others for updated contact

information (schools, other locators). By

providing my signature below I agree to allow

study staff to contact my childs school and other contact persons regarding our whereabouts, to

obtain updated address or telephone numbers. (3)

Develop a database to track sample members over

time. From the outset, it will be essential to have a

database (e.g., Microsoft Access) capable of

tracking address histories (with associated start

and stop dates), contact histories, locator

information, details about respondents and

interview experiences, survey statuses and details

for each wave, problem codes, and other anecdotal

information. (4) Use project communications to

help update addresses and other information in-

between field periods (address correction requests

on newsletters, birthday cards, etc.).

How did you optimize securing cooperation

from the participants to do the interview?

(1) An important key to successful

longitudinal follow-up is in maintaining a positive

relationship with your sample participants, and

key to this is to really treat them like relationships.

Participants do not want to feel like research subjects. They typically want to be treated as collaborating, thinking, consenting people. One

way to do this is to provide them with systematic

updates of the study findings through newsletters,

a study website, a study Facebook page or Twitter

account. Build an understanding that they are

taking part of something relatively rare and

valuable. (2) Dont make the assessment experience itself unpleasant. Use the mode (web,

laptop, face-to-face, telephone) most comfortable

with the respondent.

What were your best techniques in terms of

keeping the participants interested in the

study?

This varies by respondent. Some like the

scientific contribution. Others are proud of being

in this for a long time. Others just want the

stipend. Respondents often hate being asked the

same questions every time. Adding new foci with

each cycle helps keep it interesting and fresh.

What are the best techniques to use at the

beginning to plan for continued success in

locating participants in future and securing

their cooperation?

We discuss this question (and the previous

ones) at length in the forthcoming article by Hill,

et al. (in press). Most studies that have been

followed up over the long-term did not imagine at

the outset that they would still be in the field 30

years later. Keeping a database of locating

information, forming a solid relationship of trust

with your respondents, sharing with them over the

years findings that show that their collaboration

has produced valuable knowledge are all

important techniques to have in place from the

outset.

References

Hawkins, J. D., Catalano, R. F., Morrison, D. M.,

O'Donnell, J., Abbott, R. D., & Day, L. E. (1992).

The Seattle Social Development Project: Effects of

the first four years on protective factors and

problem behaviors. In J. McCord & R. E.

Tremblay (Eds.), Preventing antisocial behavior:

Interventions from birth through adolescence (pp.

139-161). New York: Guilford Press.

Hawkins, J. D., Kosterman, R., Catalano, R. F., Hill,

K. G., & Abbott, R. D. (2008). Effects of social

development intervention in childhood 15 years

later. Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent

Medicine, 162, 1133-1141.

Hawkins, J. D., Smith, B. H., Hill, K. G., Kosterman,

R., Catalano, R. F., & Abbott, R. D. (2007).

Promoting social development and preventing

health and behavior problems during the

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